A while back,[1] I mentioned that Pat Buchanan is advocating a return to isolationism. One of my primary objections was that it simply has not worked all that well in the past, we ended up fighting World War I and, because of the disastrous treaty ending that war, World War II. Mr. Buchanan, as if he could hear my objections (perhaps others expressed them as well?), has a new article[2] asking how much of a "victory" World War II was. He asks some very good questions, but I think some of his premises are wrong. While he may be right that France and Britain drew Hitler into western Europe, and that we joined the war to drive him out, I am certain that was not the right reason, if it was our reason, to go to war with Hitler. The right reason to go to war with Hitler was because he was unacceptably evil. The right reason was to end the Holocaust, to end his persecution of the Church, and to end his reign of death and terror over the elderly, infirm, and disabled.
Unfortunately, Mr. Buchanan's questions make even more sense in this context than in his own. Because while we did stop Hitler (late, but at least we did), we turned half of Europe over to Stalin and the Communists, who initiated a similar reign of death and terror. It makes me sympathize even more with Generals Paton and MacArthur who did not see the war as over, and wanted to take on the communists in China and Russia then, when we were already mobilized and fighting. Would we have won? On both fronts? I do not know. But I think it would have been right to have tried.
[1]
http://www.schierer.org/luke/log/view.php?date=20050505-0939
[2] http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=44210